


Lost Boys Don't Cry

by t_a_f_k_a_r



Series: Nevermore Be Afraid [3]
Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: FAHC, Fake AH Crew, Immortal Fake AH Crew, Immortal!FAHC, Temporary Deaths of Major Characters, They're Immortal
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-18
Updated: 2017-01-04
Packaged: 2018-05-21 11:13:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 5,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6049483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/t_a_f_k_a_r/pseuds/t_a_f_k_a_r
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Laws designed to keep society alive and functioning, what do they matter to someone who knows they’ll still be there long after that civilization is nothing but ruins in the earth? Mortal cares and concerns matter little to someone who is not mortal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Lost Boys Don't Cry

**Author's Note:**

> I actually have no idea what this is. But at the moment, it appears to be very, very brief history of the characters.

_"Thou shall not kill."_  
  
_"Congratulations, you are still alive._  
_Most people are so ungrateful to be alive._  
_But not you... Not any more."_  
~Cry Little Sister Vs Hello Zepp, Celldweller

 

* * *

None of them are saints, well, strictly speaking that’s not quite true. There was a period of time there where Ryan masqueraded as a saint. If he’s honest, he’ll tell you it was during the period of his life where he was giving Catholicism a try, it wasn’t for him. If he’s lying, he’ll tell you he just wanted the title. But to reiterate, none of them are _currently_ saints. That’s probably a given, honestly.

None of them are the poster boy for good decisions and moral values. But they’re not the poster boys for hell, either. They make crappy decisions, and their moral compasses are not so much mislaid as malfunctioning. But really, what can you expect from immortals?

When you have outlived the religion you were brought up in, when you have seen civilizations rise and fall. When you have fought in multiple battles under multiple kings from multiple generations and multiple kingdoms. When you have watched every last person you knew and loved age and die before you. When you have attended no less than five of your own funerals, how can mortal worries matter to you? When there is no longer a fear of death, what consequences do you have to fear for reckless acts? Time heals all, but time destroys all, too.

Laws designed to keep order, to keep the peace, what do they matter to someone who knows they’ll still be standing long after the smoke has cleared? Laws designed to keep society alive and functioning, what do they matter to someone who knows they’ll still be there long after that civilization is nothing but ruins in the earth? Mortal cares and concerns matter little to someone who is not mortal.

Immortals have their own rules, their own systems of belief, and their own ideas of what is right and what is not. And where mortal rules become so ingrained to the point of breaking over bending, immortal rules shift and change as the world does.

* * *

_Lost boys don't cry!_  
_Thou shall not fall_  
_Thou shall not die_  
_Thou shall not fear_  
_(Cry little sister!)_  
_Thou shall not kill_  
  
_"Oh yes, there will be blood."_  
~Cry Little Sister Vs Hello Zepp, Celldweller


	2. So Long Sentiment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He begins a new life, just one more in what is already a string of them.

_Under this crushing wait, I'm sinking_  
 _It never goes away, the thinking_  
 _Echoes in empty rooms are saying_  
 _“Time to erase the rest of me”_  
~So Long Sentiment, Celldweller

* * *

When Lucius Junius Brutus Vitulus wakes from his first death, there is no one to take his hand and guide him through what it is to be immortal. He dedicates the next thirty years of his life to Vulcanalus, moving from one temple to another when his lack of aging begins to become suspicious. Eventually, he begins a new life, just one more in what is already a string of them. He believes in his heart that he is a chosen of Vulcanalus, he never really stops. He has beautiful children with a wife he loves, and for a while, he’s happy. But eventually it becomes too hard, for him and his family. It becomes too much. He leaves them behind.

* * *

He is 358 when he meets another immortal, an Egyptian man going by the name Alexander. Vitulus never really figures out what gives him away to the man. Alexander deigns not to tell him, saying only ‘the eyes reveal all’. Alexander spends the next fifty years showing Vitulus the world of the immortals.

* * *

_“You have to respect death, Vitulus. There is no such thing as eternity. Life is for a little while, but death is inevitable. All things die in time, even gods.”_

_“There is no such thing as ‘true gods’, there is only belief. Your gods are as real as you believe them to be.”_

_“You are not invincible. Though we may be held in Death’s grip for a few short moments, we are eventually released. This makes us immortal. It does not mean we are invulnerable. Fire burns. Ice freezes. Blades cut. Chains restrict. Love aches. You will_ always _be vulnerable.”_

_“Humans fear that which they do not understand. They cannot understand us. If you will be wary of nothing else, be wary of them.”_

_“Don’t tie yourself down. One day, everything you come to love, you’ll have to leave behind.”_

_“We have all of time before us, but we cannot change the past. If you mess up, move on, do not dwell on that which will soon cease to matter.”_

_“Do not leave a legacy. Legacies are so future generations remember all that mortals have done, because they will not be there to tell them. We are not mortals, we will always be there.”_

* * *

Vitulus is 562 years old when he meets yet another immortal, Alexander has long since become someone of his past. Cian is a young Irish boy, his years as a mortal still far outweigh his years as an immortal, and his faith has only just begun to be tested. Cian has yet to learn that it’s better to never grow attached. Vitulus takes him under his wing, and for the next hundred years, Vitulus shows him what it means to be immortal.

* * *

_“Look, Cian, I’m not a saint, I-“_

_“That’s a lie.”_

_“I didn’t ask for this.”_

_“You’re still a saint, though.”_

_“Look, do you want me to help you or not?”_

_“Sorry, Saint Jacobus, please continue.”_

* * *

Eventually, Cian leaves the nest, and Vitulus is alone once again, going where he will, and doing what he wishes. He’s not certain, but at this point, he thinks he might be one of the eldest Immortals still walking the Earth. He knows from experience now that after an Immortal reaches three thousand, they start taking longer and longer to come back after each death, and what desire they have to pick up and move on diminishes. Most are entombed and sleeping by their 4000th birthday, content to wait out the time until all that are left upon the Earth are immortals.

* * *

Nearly 2000 years since Vitulus’ first death, and Vulcanalus’ chosen finds a place to permanently set down roots in a shithole of a city called Los Santos. It’s not paradise, but it’s home, and it’s where he lays his heart.

* * *

  
_So long sentiment_  
_It doesn't matter now_  
_What the hell is wrong with me?_  
_Why am I torturing myself?_  
_Inhaling all these memories  
_ _Like a breath of fire sent from hell._   


~So Long Sentiment, Celldweller

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know if any of you will have figured this out on your own, because I didn't really make it at all as clear as I originally wanted it. But Cian is Kerry. At some point, when I have a better grasp on his 'voice', I'll write his lil background thing, too.


	3. Against the Tide

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Their first lives ended with their hands joined together, and their new lives begin the same way. They are brothers. Twins in all but blood.

_I finally get what you've been saying_  
 _Now that we're knee deep side by side_  
 _The storm clouds are circling above us_  
 _As we struggle against the tide_  
~Against the Tide, Celldweller

* * *

When he wakes in the ashes of the Great Fire, it doesn’t matter to David John Edgar where he goes or what happens to him so long as Charles is at his side. Charles who is the last piece of home David has left. Charles who looks to David and finds home, just as much as David does. Their first lives ended with their hands joined together, and their new lives begin the same way. They are brothers. Twins in all but blood.

David is content to let Charles lead him where Charles will. Charles is his little brother now, and it is David’s job to make sure Charles never wants for anything.

* * *

It’s a matter of contention between them when Charles goes off and gets himself knighted, David doesn’t want either of them leaving any legacies behind, but Charles is determined. David doesn’t push as hard as he wants, and Charles lets everything go the moment he dies. They flee to Italy.

* * *

Italy chases them out with pitchforks and fire and the sure promise of death should they return. They laugh about it the entire trip back to England. They are well past their hundredth year when they return home.

* * *

Charles cannot help himself, and continues to fight for King, Queen, and Country. No matter what David does, he cannot talk his little brother out of such risky behaviour. It’s not that he fears Charles will die in the wars, he knows Charles will, but he fears discovery. If someone of the two of them is going to be discovered, captured, studied, and dissected in the name of science, it’s going to be _him_ , Charles has no business having his body used for science.

* * *

David spends most of the 1800s without sight, Charles stays by his side throughout, neither of them know what causes David’s blindness, but it persists through seven deaths. When David wakens from his 8th death, the first thing he sees after six decades of blindness is Charles face staring down at him with anxious eyes. David cries for hours, even as the two of them return to Italy.

* * *

When the Great War comes, David begs Charles to stay with him, they have no business fighting in this war. Charles will have none of it. He is one of the first to volunteer for the front, and within four months, he’s invalided home. Shrapnel so imbedded in multiple places in his spine that the doctors can’t explain how he didn’t die. He doesn’t tell them he did.

He returns to David an absolute wreck, and it is David’s steady hands that remove the shrapnel from Charles’ back. It is David who ensures Charles will walk again when his next resurrection brings him back to life.

They don’t talk of how close they came to Charles being discovered.

* * *

When the Great War fails to be the War to End All Wars, Charles puts his name down before David even has a chance to argue. They fight as they have not fought in decades and they go their separate ways for a time. When they next meet, it is as POWs and they spend the next two years being experimented on in the hopes to discover the cause of their immortality. It is Charles who carries David’s broken body from the wreckage when their camp is liberated. When they’re returned home, Charles promises to never sign up for military service again without first consulting with David and convincing him the pros outweigh the risks.

It is all David had ever wanted.

* * *

Charles manages to convince David to let him join the military again. David fights it for a few years, but eventually he gives in. The idea of Charles going through what they had at the hands of the Nazis gives him night terrors for three months straight, until Charles is killed in action and crawls home to him. They repeat the process in the new century, but Charles survives long enough that David once more grows accustomed to Charles’ absence.

The night terrors never really go away. David has scars on his soul that confirm for him that his fears are real. Charles isn’t safe from anyone, especially people trying to fight and win a war.

* * *

David finds a craphole of a city in the New Wold called Los Santos. And he doesn’t really know why he stays, but he does. And the longer he stays, the more comfortable he becomes with the idea of Charles being off fighting a war that David isn’t a part of, a war that David still feels Charles has no business fighting. If the World wants Immortals to experiment on, the Fake AH Crew isn’t making any secret of their abilities. People will come for them first, and Charles will be safe.

* * *

_This sorrow weighs down on my shoulders_  
 _This fear is getting harder to hide_  
 _You'll leave me alone in this darkness_  
 _Left to hold out_  
 _Against the tide_  
~Against the Tide, Celldweller


	4. The Last Firstborn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s lonely being Immortal. Always with the knowledge that if you let yourself grow attached to even a single one of these people, you’ll pay for it in the end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear Jack is always the hardest for me to write. -_-

_Where are you? What do you think?_  
_'Cos I'm not sure when_  
 _Knocking at death's door_  
 _If I will be welcome in_  
 _Or be left alone outside_  
~The Last Firstborn, Celldweller

* * *

 

It is days before Pearl is rescued from the water, it will be years before she appreciates that the Immortal Captain of the ship stuck a knife in her the moment she was aboard. Recovery would have been painful and tedious otherwise. When Pearl wakes, she is in the Captain’s bed and she is fully healed. Part of her wishes to tie weights to her feet and throw herself back into the water. She is not natural. She will not be a ghost of the sea.

“I’m assuming this is the first time you’ve ever died.” The captain says, and Pearl jumps, unaware that the Captain had been watching her.

“No.” Pearl answers, turning to look at the woman. “I died when the ship exploded” the Captain nods her head and sits down at the desk opposite the bed.

“It’s the same thing, really. Until you’re used to dying, every death may as well be your first.” She answers with a shrug. Pearl frowns at her.

“How did you know I was like you? What are we?” Pearl asks, the Captain smiles and shakes her head.

“When you’re older, you’ll understand. We Immortals have a way of finding each other.” She says, before sighing heavily and shrugging her shoulders. “None of us really know what we are. We just know that we can’t die. Well, strictly speaking, that’s not true. We can die, we just don’t stay dead.”

“Why?”

“Who knows? If the Elders know, they aren’t talking.”

“The Elders?” Pearl asks, sitting up slowly to lean her back against the wall.

“The eldest of us. Some of them have been around since the time of the Ice Age. I think Hekkar is the oldest, but she’s Sleeping, and no one is stupid enough to wake her.” The captain answers, shaking her head. “You reach a point in your life where there’s no point in packing everything up and starting over again. Most Immortals reach that point and go into hibernation within their tombs. There’s only about sixteen of us Awake who are older than one thousand years old.”

“One thousand years old?” Pearl exclaims, eyes wide. The captain smiles at her, a mischievous glint in her eyes.

“Oh, I’m much older than that. I was born in Epirus long ago, I died in the shadow of the Necromanteion, and my resurrection was seen by many worshipers of Hades. It was decided that I was the daughter of Hades, and they named me Macaria, she who is blessed. But that was a very long time ago, I go by Caiti now, and I’m coming to the end of my time walking this Earth.” Macaria-Caiti explains, a frown forming on her face. “Soon, I will go to my Slumber.”

“Why?” Pearl questions, looking at Caiti with something akin to awe.

“I grow tired of this world. Humanity's knowledge of the world grows, but so does their ignorance. For every one thing they learn, they fail to understand two others. This is how it has always been, and I am tired of it. That’s why I saved you.” Caiti admits, smiling. “I can teach you all that I know, and when it is time for me to Sleep, you can take my place.”

“What?”

“There’s nothing like being out on the water, I think you know that. But it’s harder to set down roots when you see land as little as you possibly can.”

“You want me to take your place?” Pearl asks, stupefied.

“Yes. C’mon, you’ve got so much to learn.”

* * *

Caiti spends thirty years teaching Pearl everything she possibly can about immortality and surviving in a mortal world. She teaches Pearl everything she knows about love, too. Before she returns home to Epirus and is entombed within her family crypt. Pearl takes over command of the Charon, and rules the sea with an iron fist.

* * *

Eventually, the time comes where the sea is no longer a safe place to be for pirates, and Pearl turns her attention to land. She doesn’t set down roots, there is not anywhere that she comes across worthy of being called home by her, so she moves from one place to another, and never lingers anywhere long. Never lets anyone in. It’s lonely being Immortal. Always surrounded by hundreds of people with the knowledge that all of them will leave you behind one day. Always with the knowledge that if you let yourself grow attached to even a single one of these people, you’ll pay for it in the end.

Pearl hates this mortal world.

* * *

Somehow, Pearl finds herself in Australia, the place Caiti had always found fascinating. Pearl finds it fascinating, too. What she doesn’t find fascinating is the subjugation of the Aboriginal peoples, but it is not Pearl’s place to interfere. It is not her place to get involved in mortal matters, even if they turn her stomach to knots.

* * *

Eventually, Pearl leaves Australia to begin exploring the world once more, she’s missed the sea. Along her journeys she becomes Jacqueline. She encounters Immortals nearly everywhere she goes, and nearly everywhere she goes she encounters oppression like that she’d seen in Australia. _Mortals_ , she thinks, _are disgusting_. And the Immortals she meets on her journeys agree.

_“One day, this world will be ours. The mortals will be long gone, and we will repair all the destruction they have wrought.”_

* * *

Jack will never get over the greed and apathy she sees in the mortals. The homeless and starving beg on the street for coin, and the rich do all in their power to deny them even the right to health care. The rich do all in their power to keep their money sitting useless and untouched in the banks while the poor die in the streets for the want of a few coins.

Jack  _hates_ mortals.

* * *

When eventually she wakes up beside Geoff on the beach in Los Santos, she doesn’t know what makes her stay, but she does. Forming the FAHC is Geoff’s idea, but Jack goes along with it without complaint. Maybe setting down roots will be good for her, maybe she’s been running for too long. Only one way to find out.

* * *

 _Live a life in hell through a mortal shell,_  
_Asphyxiating smell, for a crime;_  
 _Lifetime, imagination locked in a cell_  
 _And to the other firstborn_  
 _I see the same scene that_  
 _Must play over in your mind_  
 _And now how much more_  
 _I'm sure it's fucked with your head_  
 _Just like it's fucked up mine_  
~The Last Firstborn, Celldweller

 


	5. Switchback

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He will never understand mortals for as long as he lives.

_"Wait, how can it be too l_ _ate? '  
Cause I don't want to pl_ _ay  
With such a price to p_ _ay."_  
~Switchback, Celldweller

* * *

When Harris wakes surrounded by the bodies of his Brothers in Arms, he spends a good ten minutes lying in the dirt and throwing up whatever contents remain undigested within his body. It takes him a long time to drag himself out of his open grave, and stumble his way off the battlefield. He doesn’t know why he’s alive and it terrifies him.

Harris spends the next ten years at a priory, trying to expel the Devil from his body. It doesn’t work, and eventually he has to accept that. He searches all over America, but he finds no information on what he has become. He puts himself on a boat to England, and tells himself he’s not a traitor. He fought for his country, he fought for his freedom. He died for it. He owes no one anything. 

* * *

England gives him a vast history on his kind, when he figures out the right places to look, of course. England leads him to Rome, which leads him to Africa, and Africa leads him to answers. Hekkar is not the most talkative of people, and she’s not all that pleased when Harris wakes her from her Slumber. But when Harris gets down on his knees and begs her to tell him what’s happening to him, she softens.

Her answers don’t give Harris hope of a cure but he accepts them with grace. Hekkar has given him all that she knows of the origins of their people.

* * *

_“We were told stories as children about the Ever Lifers. Those who would never truly die. The stories said that it began with a woman, beautiful as the moonlight, and as treacherous as the sea. She met our ancestors as they made their journey outward from the Ancestral Home. She belonged to the People Who Came Before.”_

_“The People Who Came Before?”_

_“Yes. Those who left the Ancestral Home long before our ancestors. She spoke of a defect. Of those born to their peoples with an affinity for life, and a resistance to death. She told our ancestors that she was the last of her kind, those with the defect. That the ones without the defect had discovered ways to prevent her kind from returning to life as they would. But she did not reveal these methods.”_

_“Why?”_

_“I do not know, but I imagine she wouldn’t want humans without the defect to know how to permanently kill those with it. She wouldn't want a repeat of what happened to her people.”_

_“Makes sense.”_

_“It does. She married into the tribe of our ancestors, and spread the defect through their genetics. And as they moved themselves out across the world, they spread the genetic defect to all who walk this Earth. And she? She disappeared from all knowledge.”_

_“Like the ones who came before? Like our ancestors?” _

_“No, I know where our ancestors lie. But I will not speak of it.”_

_“But-“_

_“You will gain nothing from seeing them. They long ago lost the ability to speak. They have become shadows.”_

* * *

Harris leaves Hekkar to her Slumber and returns to his birth nation. He takes up the name Geoffrey.

America has changed much, but still so much has stayed the same. He tries to make a home for himself there, but there is nothing for him. Everyone he meets ages before his eyes, and everyone he loves dies before his eyes, too. He moves himself on. Never stays anywhere too long, never lets himself grow attached.

This is the freedom he died for.

It wasn’t worth it.

* * *

When the Great War comes, Geoffrey turns himself from it, resits its influence for as long as he possibly can, before honour calls him to act. He dies in the trenches, and he wakes to an open grave, so like that first time. He can't stop shaking in his boots, he jumps at every noise, and sometimes he finds it so hard to speak. Shell-shock, they call it, and they send him home. Coward, they call him. He tells them to go fuck themselves and disappears from all mortal societies for the next fifty years.

* * *

So, when the Second World War comes, he swallows his pride and stays away from the fighting. Let the mortals fight and die for their petty squabbles. It's not like he can stop shaking long enough to hold a gun, anyway. 

* * *

Recovery is slow, but it comes. Eventually, he ventures back into mortal civilization, and it continues to disgust him how much everything has changed, but stayed the same. 

He will never understand mortals for as long as he lives. 

* * *

Jack is like a breath of fresh air when he meets her. The pair of them wake on the sand, and there is a light that goes on in his mind. Covered in their own blood, their clothing torn and ruined, but there are no wounds to be seen. Geoff latches on to Jack like a man drowning, and he promises himself never to let go.

So, they set down roots in Los Santos, and they decide to take the city. If these mortals consider their lives something to be given to the highest bidder, then so be it. Only, this time, he'll be calling the shots. 

* * *

 _"Chained to what I can't reclaim,_  
_I'll never be the same,_  
_Won't be the same, again."_  
~Switchback, Celldweller.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Somehow, of course, it's Geoff who ends up at a priory... then again, Ryan became a saint... 
> 
> IDK if there actually were priories in America during the revolution, but... well, if there weren't, there were for this story.


	6. Tainted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Humans have been at war with each other since the dawn of their creation, nothing will ever change that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Somehow, Lindsay's turned out to be the easiest to write. This makes little sense to me.

_It's not a question of why and if she'll make it._   
_It's more a question of when and how she'll take it._

_There's nothing more she can do to make them change it._  
 _She does the best that she can to rearrange it._  
 _There's still the question of how she's grown so tainted._  
 _A tattered canvas unfurls, watch as they paint it.  
_ ~Tainted, Celldweller

* * *

 

Antoinette wakes with a choking cough, and hands pressed down on her shoulders to keep her lying down. A blanket is wrapped securely around her, and she’s _warm._

“Rest, miss. You’ve been through quite an ordeal.” A woman’s voice says, and Antoinette slowly opens her eyes to see a nurse sitting beside her, it is the nurse who holds her down.

“What?” Antoinette begins to ask, before her words are swallowed in a coughing fit.

“They rescued you from the water.” The nurse explains helpfully; not nearly helpful enough.

“Right.” Antoinette doesn’t question. Instead, she rests back against her pillow, closes her eyes and drifts back to sleep.

* * *

Antoinette slips away in the night, and loses herself in the streets of New York, and when she finally resurfaces, she calls herself Elise. She spends the two years leading up to the Great War getting herself to terms with her immortality, having died each winter since her rescue from the water. Apparently, she didn’t get to walk away from the Titanic unscathed.

* * *

Elise spends the years during the war moving across America, she has no desire to involve herself in the war effort, in any capacity she’d be able to. She has enough trouble keeping herself alive, she doesn’t require the added difficulty of trying to keep others alive, too. Besides, if she lets herself stick around anywhere too long, she might grow attached, and she refuses to grow attached.

* * *

When the Second War comes, Elise watches on with great apathy. By now, she’s gotten her hands on as much information about her kind as she can find. While her people eventually learn not to go to war for any reason, the mortals, she’s found, struggle with the concept of peace. If they’re willing to throw their One Time lives away for petty squabbles over land and pride and women and oil and greed, let them. It is their right to throw their lives away. Why should she help them?

* * *

Neither World War has proven to be the War to End All Wars, and Elise finds herself unsurprised. All the wars in human history, and the mortals thought that just because all the world was involved this time, all war would end? Folly. Humans have been at war with each other since the dawn of their creation, nothing will ever change that. Elise watches the Cold War with quiet annoyance, and lives her life as she wishes, ignoring any who deign to dictate to her.

* * *

Elise watches the towers go down and she shakes her head. When she walks away, it is with a heavy heart. Just over one hundred years since her birth, and humans still fight and kill each other. Truly, the world never changes. Elise sheds her name, and her current life, and she disappears off the grid.

* * *

She reappears six years later in Los Santos, going by the name Lindsay.

She’s killed when an _asshole_ runs her over while she’s riding on her bike. The last thing she hears before she hits the ground is laughter and the words ‘nice one, boi’. And she vows she’s going to kick some serious fucking ass when she wakes up.

She wakes in the morgue, and frightens the mortician half to death. When he passes out from fright, she steals his clothing and waltzes out the door. She steals a car, drives to her apartment, and gets herself ready to track down the asshats who killed her.

She already knows whose asses to kick, she just needs to find out where they are. Maybe they shouldn’t go driving around with their fucking crew logo all over their vehicles if they don’t want to be murdered in the middle of the night.

* * *

It turns out that Michael has some serious survival instincts when he needs them. And it doesn’t hurt that he’s patching up her Baby when she finds him.

_“Gav did a fucking number on you!” Michael’s exclaiming to the bike when Lindsay slips in through the window._

_“I think you have something that belongs to me.” Lindsay leads with, and laughs when Michael leaps into the air in freight._

_“Holy shit! I thought you died!!” Michael exclaims, as he turns on her. She shrugs her shoulders, a vicious grin on her face._

_“I made a deal with Death.” Lindsay answers, and understanding seems to light up Michael’s eyes, and it gives Lindsay pause._

_“Oh, shit! You’re like us!!” Michael yells, and then his eyes get wide with something like fear. “Okay, okay, okay!” he exclaims loudly, holding his hands up in surrender. “How about I, like, fix your bike up for you, and we go and fuck some people up, and you don’t rip my balls off?” he offers, and Lindsay frowns, cocking her head to the side._

_“You know you’re immortal, right?” She asks, questioning why he’s suddenly all terrified._

_“Yeah, but fuck, dude. I know_ Jack _. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned from Jack, it’s that the females of our kind are fucking_ terrifying _when they’re angry!” Lindsay smirks at the explanation._

_“Well, Jack’s not wrong.” She says, and Michael nods enthusiastically._

_“Right? Like, you’ll totally rip my balls off if you get the chance, and I’m_ really _fond of my balls. And I’d rather not die from blood loss because you ripped them off!” Lindsay starts giggling when Michael’s voice starts going up a pitch._

_“Fine. You fix my bike, we fuck some people up, and your balls stay exactly where they should be.”_

_“Thank God!”_

_“God has nothing to do with it.”_

_“Oh, I’m so aware!!”_

That’s date one. And it is the first of many to follow.

* * *

Michael drags Lindsay off to see Caleb the first chance he gets, and Lindsay finally finds out that her stint in the North Atlantic Ocean left scars upon her lungs that weren’t healed when she died. You gotta love immortality, especially when it heals you of everything but scars gained just hours before your first death, not.

* * *

Lindsay sets down roots, and she allows herself to grow attached. And for the first time, she involves herself in a war. The war the FAHC are waging on Los Santos.

She slots herself right in and puts all her skills to the task.

This is her home, now.

* * *

_She's at the edge of the world._   
_She's there standing alone._   
_She's the loneliest girl._   
_And now she finally feels like she's coming home._

_Her heart is turning to stone._  
 _Here at the end of this girl._  
 _This time she finally feels like she's coming home.  
_ ~Tainted, Celldweller


	7. New Elysium

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For all that these mortals only have one life each to live, they sure throw a lot of them away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't realize I hadn't already posted this. Sorry :/ 
> 
> On another note, I am now one of those people that works full time and is responsibly adulting. So my motivation to write has been pretty low atm, so sorry for the lack of posting. :/

_Born of the earth, are we all condemned to hell?_  
_We've tried so hard but we can't save us from ourselves_  
_Destined to die from the moment of our birth_  
_So why have we forgotten everything that we are worth?_  
~New Elysium, Celldweller

* * *

 

Vincent wakes up in what he thinks is hell. It takes him a good twenty minutes to realize it’s not hell, he’s just woken up in the middle of the War. He picks himself up from the dirt, and sneaks off into the night. He’s loyal to his country, he’s loyal to his brothers, but they won’t be loyal to him, to whatever he is now.

* * *

It takes him all of three days to figure out the easiest way home is to be _sent_ there. He lets himself be shot in the hand, it cripples him, but it gets him sent home. In all the confusion, they don’t realize when he gives them a name that is not his own. When he’s in America once again, he disappears as soon as he is able.

* * *

It is three months before Vincent works up the courage to kill himself. When he does, he wakes with full use of his hand. And he spends a good few hours crying over what he has become. When he is calm, he forces himself to move on.

* * *

By the end of the war, Vincent has become Jackson and he puts on a limp whenever he goes into the towns. The looks these mortals give you when they realize you’re young and healthy and not fighting in the war. When you're not throwing your life away for the cause.

He fought in the war. He _died_ in it. He doesn’t need their petty judgement.

* * *

When the Cold War comes around, Jackson, now Alex, watches on with great sadness. There will never be an end to war, he understands that now. He leaves America behind him, and spends a good few years sailing around the Earth. He likes the seclusion. He likes the freedom.

* * *

The ocean agrees with him, but it doesn’t agree with his immortality. If you’ve seen it once, you’ve seen enough of it for a life time. Alex has nowhere else to go on the open seas, he’s seen it all.

 _‘Maybe the pirates used to talk of the fountain of youth because some of them were immortal. Maybe it amused them to dangle immortality in front of their mortal peers, knowing their peers could never understand the_ hell _of never being able to rest. Maybe it let them keep on going when everything became monotonous. I’d have been a good pirate.’_

* * *

The Cold War ends, but new wars quickly rise to take its place, peace is a foreign concept to these mortals, Alex, now Michael, has learned. It’s something spoken of fancifully, like it’s something that only exists in stories.

For all that these mortals only have one life each to live, they sure throw a lot of them away.

* * *

Michael, almost Jason, is in a town in the middle of nowhere, on his way to nowhere, coming from nowhere, suddenly finds himself going _somewhere_ when a slip of a man dives into the back of his car and screams ‘drive’ at him in the highest pitched English accent Michael, almost Jason, has ever heard.

And it’s the beginning of something beautiful.

* * *

Almost Jason becomes Always Michael, and nowhere becomes somewhere, somewhere becomes Los Santos and Los Santos becomes _home._ Always Michael settles his ass down. He ain’t going _nowhere._

* * *

 _We are the young, the chosen ones_  
_Voices in unison, the ending has begun_  
 _A new kingdom come, a new will be done_  
 _Enter into this new Elysium_  
 _~ New Elysium, Celldweller_


End file.
